New Haven’s first black female police captain is suing the city for discrimination that she says dates back to 2012.

Patricia Helliger is a 20-year veteran of the department. She was promoted to captain three months ago. The lawsuit says Helliger was subject to a campaign of racial and gender harassment that delayed that promotion.

On Saturday night, Beyoncé shook the music world with an hourlong feature on HBO, and then a surprise album — Lemonade.

Beyoncé couldn't have produced a body of work this defiant, or blunt, two years ago. Lemonade has been made possible by the cultural, social and political upheaval we're in the midst of, triggered by the deaths of boys and fathers and women, who will never be forgotten.

It has been a year since Freddie Gray died from injuries sustained as Baltimore police transported him to a station. The 25-year-old was arrested after running from police; officers later found a small knife in Gray's possession. Cellphone video of the arrest showed Gray being dragged, moaning in pain, to the police van while at least one onlooker shouted that Gray needed medical care.

A few weeks ago we held a conversation about the n-word -- how the word is used by black and white Americans; how it's been used by newspapers over time; and how one professor would like to see it stop being used altogether.

I get that it's stupid April Fools' Day, and so you can't trust anything you see on the stupid Internet. Except for the Trump quotes. The Trump quotes are just as legitimate today as they are on all the other days.

But so let me just make it clear right now that I'm totally serious when I say that on this edition of The Nose we talk about...

Iason Athanasiadis is a writer, photojournalist, and documentary filmmaker who has spent years covering the Middle East and Mediterranean Europe. He was in Hartford recently to speak to the World Affairs Council of Connecticut, and stopped by our studios to talk about journalism in conflict regions and the Syrian migrant crisis. This hour, we listen back to that conversation.

When Melissa Harris-Perry refused to host her eponymous MSNBC talk show in late February, she said she was stepping back because over the past few weeks she had been "silenced." Shortly afterward, she and her network confirmed they had parted ways.

From the start, Harris-Perry and her employers had very different explanations for why things went south. Harris-Perry said her show was being undermined; MSNBC says it, like other shows, was temporarily affected by the election season.

Before Black Lives Matter was a hashtag, before it was a slogan chanted by protesters in cities across the country, before it was a national movement, it was a Facebook post by an Oakland-based activist named Alicia Garza. She wrote it after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

While the Republican Party splits over which direction it should head, GOP officials say they've been quietly trying to turn the page with black voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina and Florida.

The effort is the result of the GOP's so-called "autopsy" report on the 2012 elections, when Mitt Romney won 6 percent of the African-American vote, down from the 11 percent George W. Bush won in 2004. President Obama carried 93 percent of the black vote, helping him secure victory in key battleground states such as Ohio.

When Melissa Adams and her sister were growing up in Lynwood, near Compton, Calif., their black father and Mexican mother taught them to be proud of all aspects of their identity: They were black, andthey were Mexican.

Weeks after students staged a sit-in over allegations of racism on campus, Providence College has detailed plans to address the students' concerns. In a letter, college officials outlined proposed changes to faculty training and the college curriculum.

Backlash to a so-called “ghetto party” at Fairfield University in February has received national attention, drawing coverage from the Huffington Post,Teen Vogue and the New York Times. “Ghetto parties” — theme parties where students often dress in costumes and act out stereotypes of urban Black youth — have a history in predominantly-white universities.

When a woman addicted to opioids gives birth, she usually leaves her baby behind to be cared for by nurses. However, one Connecticut hospital is rethinking that approach. This hour, we find out why with WNPR reporter Jeff Cohen.

Just days away from the Oscars, Hollywood continues to face down questions over its lack of diversity — particularly among the nominees for its top prize. The controversy has helped prompt a viral hashtag, #OscarsSoWhite, and has led the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to pledge to diversify in years to come.